This invention relates to a tri-fold shipping label or business form, and more particularly, to a shipping label adapted to be adhered to a substrate such as an envelope, canister or package.
Commercial businesses who supply goods which may be progressively transported along a chain of consumers or returned to the supplier, such as for example, motion pictures, recording media, books, sample goods, and various mail order items, often have difficulty in forwarding or returning the goods to the proper locations. Further, these goods are often accompanied by documentation such as invoices, receipts, forwarding instructions, etc. This additional documentation has a tendency to become misplaced, separated from the goods, or lost. As a result, the chain of documentation can be broken and the goods may be shipped to the wrong location. This results in considerable waste in shipping and transportation charges, lost goods, as well as additional expenses for generation of this additional documentation.
Some attempts have been made to create shipping labels with return cards, receipts, invoices, etc. so as to eliminate the need for additional documentation. Representative of these attempts is O'Brien, U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,167. O'Brien shows a Z-fold combination shipping and return label including an intermediate card connecting the shipping and return portions of the label. The shipping portion of the label includes bands of peripheral adhesive. However, the O'Brien label contains a card with no adhesive as the center label. Thus, the center card can not be adhesively applied once it has been removed from the remainder of the label, increasing its risk for loss. Further, the shipping label has adhesive only on the edge portions of the label so that when the backing is removed, the label does not adhere to the center card. Thus, the shipping label, once removed also cannot be adhesively applied, thereby decreasing its usefulness as a receipt or invoice.
Accordingly, there remains a need in this art for a shipping label which can reduce or eliminate additional documentation accompanying shipped goods required with current labels and reduce the risk of loss or improper handling of those goods.